Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Search This Blog

Pages

Booker Longlist 1: Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

Judging by the reaction to
the Longlist announcement I am one amongst many delighted to see some smaller
publishers represented on the list. Swimming Home by Deborah Levy is
published by And Other Stories. They offer a subscription to their list
that allows them to be highly selective about what they publish. This has quickly borne fruit, both in the quality of their books and having a
title on a major prize list. Congratulations are well deserved, I think.

And so to the book.
Swimming Home is a deceptively simple tale of a summer holiday. A
dysfunctional family rent a villa in France. Famous poet father, war
correspondent mother and teenage daughter are joined by family friends Mitchell
and Laura. Their uneasy relationship is utterly destroyed by a body
floating in the pool. The body belongs to Kitty Finch, botanist and ardent
fan of Joe's poetry. Her still, naked body brings to the surface all the
tensions between husband and wife, parent and child, friend and acquaintance
that have long been smothered and left to fester.

It's a dark tale of
resentment, lust and betrayal. Tragedy is obviously nearby, destruction
looms menacingly, but where or how it will strike is unclear. All the
characters have major faultlines, the janitor and next-door-neighbour as well
as the family, that could rip apart at any moment. The book is tense, the
atmosphere amplified by the sparse style. We live a week with these
people, getting to know their thoughts and emotions. There's so much
potential for tragedy it is hard on the nerves, but so compulsive. I
almost allowed myself to believe the worst could be avoided, hoped that this
odd group could emerge unscathed from their unenviable vacation. I'll say
no more than that, and allow you to tread warily along with them for yourself.

I think this is an
excellent book. The doom-laden, claustrophobic air is reminiscent of
Patricia Highsmith's Stranger on a Train or The Talented Mr Ripley, both of
which I adore. The book opens on a mountain road at midnight, and this
part of the tale acts as an infrequent refrain throughout. I enjoyed this
gradual telling a great deal. It is just one of many things that make
this a book to recommend. I'd be thrilled if this made it through to the
shortlist.

The story of Lizzie Borden has a whiff of folklore about it, it feels hazy to me, apocryphal perhaps, something half known and uncertain like Washington and the cherry tree or the ride of Paul Revere. Shamefully, I had to Google both the latter two examples to double check they were the events I thought I was referring to. I choose them deliberately though - is it my Englishness that makes these events fuzzy to me? Do these stories live in the American psyche the way Magna Carta, Henry VIII and his six wives, and Jack the Ripper (to select three almost at random) live in mine?
I remember a book we stocked when I was a very young bookseller at Waterstones in Watford that looked at the psychology of children who murder their parents. The copy on the back of the book talked of Lizzie Borden. I remember half wondering about the case, then shelving the book away and moving onto the next armful. But it stuck in my m…

My nieces and nephews and I have a monthly book club, called Book Chase (although it sometimes gains an extra 's' to become Book Chasse). The rules are simple: we all bring something we've read during the last month, talk about it to each other, and eat snacks. We live tweet each meeting with the hashtag BookChase. Sometimes, when we remember, we Storify all the tweets too. This month, we remembered!